Pursuant to Section 4:37j(1) of the Financial Supervision Act (Wft), the legal ownership of the assets of an investment fund must be held by an entity whose sole statutory purpose is to hold the legal ownership of the assets of one or more investment funds, whether or not together with the safekeeping and administration of the assets.

The Wft contains rules on financial supervision. However, Section 4:37j(1) Wft is also relevant from a private law perspective because of its asset law terminology and its impact on corporate law aspects such as the legal form, the purpose of the articles of association, the management and the representation of the legal owner.

In this contribution, I discuss some aspects of Section 4:37j(1) Wft from a private law perspective. In section 2, I briefly discuss the background of Section 4:37j(1) Wft. In section 3, I discuss some corporate law aspects of the legal owner of an investment fund and in section 4 I discuss the terminology of Section 4:37j(1) Wft from a property law perspective. In section 5 I discuss the possible consequences of the proposed modernisation of the law on partnerships and in section 6 I conclude with a conclusion and recommendation.

The full publication is available in Dutch.

This publication was first published in WPNR - Opmaat.sdu.nl